Thucydides Quotes
If it had not been for the pernicious power of envy, men would not so have exalted vengeance above innocence and profit above justice... in these acts of revenge on others, men take it upon themselves to begin the process of repealing those general laws of humanity which are there to give a hope of salvation to all who are in distress.
Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Translated by Rex Warner, Penguin Books, 1954, p. 245.
The British Government had offered a £20,000 prize for the first person who developed a practical method of determining longitude at sea. Most of the university, military and religious scientists of the day worked on astronomical instrument approaches but Harrison, a relatively unknown clockmaker with no social or scientific credentials, came up with an incredibly accurate clock that would function at sea and immediately calculate the longitude. The scientific establishment refused to certify Harrison for the price even after the British Navy had determined that his method worked. At the urging of the King, Parliament voted him the money.
Later, in 1973, he himself was denounced and sentenced to the guillotine. When he was sentenced, hecklers asked him if his blood was too pure for execution throwing his quotation back at him.
He drove a rented SUV into a crowd at a Dining Hall at the University of North Carolina from which he had recently graduated. He was an Iranian-born American citizen who had perceived that American policies and practices abroad led to the death on many Muslims. His interpretation of the Koran agrees with most of the radical, extremist, theologians, but does not comport with the interpretation of moderate Muslim religious thinkers. In 2008, he was convicted and sentenced to 33 years of prison.
This was part of his presentation to Northern influential business men showing them what he claimed was the New South. He was particularly complimentary about the negro Christian viewpoint that inhibited revenge or retaliation for their terrible treatment. The favorable lines about Negroes were well received by Northerners. However, they were mostly unaware of his racist views he expressed when in the South. See Quotation 643649.
Actually under Islamic law teh relatives of the victems can grant mercy, and they are frequently paid money by the family and friends of the accused murderer to do so. in many cases, the wealthy offender can avoid even long jail terms. However, if the victim's family is also very wealthy, they would often exact vengeance and have the killer executed. This is one major difference between must Western law and Islamic law. In the West we do not giver the relatives of the victim any significant role in the process. Vengeance is not recogniszed and it is society that acts. Recently some states have allowed victim families to man imact statment s to the jury or judge. There had been an aborted revolution and several hundred Turks were killed in the battles betwen the revolutionists and the police and non-revolutionary soldiers.
Thucydides (/θjuːˈsɪdɪdiːz/; Ancient Greek: Θουκυδίδης Thoukūdídēs [tʰuːkyːdídɛːs]; c. 460 – c. 400 BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the deities, as outlined in his introduction to his work.
